Why Does Android Use Dessert Names for Their Operating Systems?

We got to thinking and wondered why Android decided to use Dessert names for their operating systems!

If you are one of the millions who have an Android smart phone, you may be aware that Android uses interesting and very sweet names for each version of its operating system. They all represent desserts. These names are unofficial, but fun nonetheless. The operating system names are named for sugary desserts in alphabetical order. The two original pre-released version were called internally at Android, Astro and Bender. However these names weren’t actually used because the names were already trademarked. So the team came up with the idea of using desserts for the codename of each release.

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The first was Cupcake, followed by Donut, Éclair, Froyo (for frozen yogurt), Gingerbread, Honeycomb and the newest, Ice Cream Sandwich.

Starting with Honeycomb, the operating system started being designed for tablet computers as well as smart phones.

When asked why desserts, Google doesn’t really give any kind of specific explanation. When Randall Sarafa, a Google spokesman, was asked that question, he answered, “It’s kind of like an internal team thing, and we prefer to be a little bit — how should I say — a bit inscrutable in the matter, I’ll say… The obvious thing is that, yeah, the Android platform releases, they go by dessert names and by alphabetical order for the most part.”

Google even has build statutes of the dessert codenames and they are kept on the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Android itself is an interesting name. The word “android” is a name for a robot that is very human looking and acting. The symbol for the Android operating system is a little robot, and it’s quite possible that someone on the development team had a sense of humor and figured the little guy was hungry. Of course, the development team may have wanted to see if they could “one up” Apple, which names its operating systems after cats.

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[…] { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } In a previous post, we went over the Android operating system and their funky dessert names and the the feedback we got was that we were an “Android shop”. While we DO like the […]